Hippopotamus Defence

I now have the Chess Giant's course, and the Andrew Martin Fritztrainer course, which you can stream directly from the Chessbase website if you don't have the Chessbase software.

Both are excellent and I highly recommend them!

Anybody who, like myself, has watched the Chess Giant's 114 Hippo videos on Youtube, will wonder why you would also want to pay for his Hippo course? But the course is structured in a 'start to finish' basis, and Solomon Ruddell walks you through all the theory, tips and tricks, so within the space of 6 hours you will have everything fresh in your head to play the Hippo successfully and with confidence!

The Andrew Martin course I am probably biased about because i've loved watching his chess videos for over 20 years, but I think he does a very good job of covering the Hippo and all the plans you need to know.

I now have every Hippo book and course available in the entire world (as far as i'm aware 😁)

Hopefully the posts i've made help encourage Hippo fanatics past, present and future, to dive a little deeper into the swamp, to find out more about the dangerous Hippo! 🦛

actually, if you are smart and sensible to move order peculiarities, its not hard to set up positions where you seem to be doing a hippo and do something more advantageous, here is for example a clever hippo feint

this is clever because by feigning a hippo via the b6 move order you get concession of early nf3 (blocking f pawn, the more dangerous pawn trio) and 0-0, no h4 worries, but then once white commits to c4 early which is the most dangerous set up, you play for be7-bf6, ne7-ng6 and c5. the advantages are multiple, without g6, the knight can go there, so now after c5 ,d5, black can play around the weakened dark squares with 3 minor pieces , also in some lines, after c5-d5, bxc3 doubling pawns, or even bxd4 if the knight hops there is possible but without having the weakened dark squares on the kingside that g6 leaves behind.
but mastering these subtle move order peculiarities is not easy. people play the hippo precisely to avoid memorizing opening subtleties like this. There is one top player who seems to play around with these (will he hippo, will he not) with b6 which is radjabov at least in rapid games.

You mean, e4 Nh6

Yeah

The actual problem is that the vast majority of the guys which are playing the Hippo are doing that not because it is an opening which leaves room for inventiveness, but rather for the exact opposite reason: They hope to be able to play the first one dozen of moves on autopilot.

The move order which you suggested is clever indeed, although I do not think it solves any problems if white opts for the seemingly innocuous yet highly annoying 8.Qa4(!). White is threatening e4-e5, and Black has to make a major concession to avoid it.

Engines suggest that Black should opt for the following tactical sequence, but I do not think anyone sane enough would like to play Black here.

honestly, idk how many masters would play qa4 here. i imagine some might but most wont and will play a natural move instead. 

i would prefer this over the crazy line you showed. The eval is relatively high of course (Stockfish 17 nnue has it at 0.9 at depth 28) but thats well within the kind of range you would expect from a normal hippo, maybe even a feather bit better. This position is also ...fairly reasonable, it resembles an old indian with knight on g6 instead of f6 which may even be a small improvement. I think certainly a playable position for a side weapon especially given the a priori willingness to play hippo to begin with.

It would be hilarious to play that move order against somebody who has been preparing extremely hard to conquer your Hippo. Their eyes would pop out when they see that Bishop move! 🤣 But I agree with Mazetoskylo that most regular guys and gals playing the Hippo wouldn't touch that move with a barge pole, because it takes us out of our comfort zone far too early.

Hippo players are loathe to make non-Hippo opening moves.

To quote one of the stronger Hippo players, Robert Drury...

"Learning when to leave the Hippo is the key to it , I’m still learning that aspect."

I’m playing in a OTB tournament this weekend , there’s one opponent that will start with 1.b4 then Bb2, does anyone have any suggestions to whether I can get a Hippo against this and if so what move order should I use?

I'm with Drury.

Edit: I'm NOT with Drury. (I misunderstood his meaning.)

Abandoning the Hippo setup demonstrates a lack of faith in Hippo. Most people leave the Hippo because they get bored or out of defiance.

The line above might be good for Black, but it doesn't belong to the Hippo repertoire, and it's not fully explored nor proven. We have not yet reached the point where we have found thematic weaknesses in the Hippo setup.

I have heard about the so-called "Semi-Hippo", but I have never seen a definition of it. In De Santis' book there are a few times when he mentions the Semi-Hippo but there is never an explanation provided for the reason for leaving the Hippo. When you leave the Hippo the opening identification simply reverts back to the move order that was used to start with. It's not a semi-anything.

If it never looked like this, then it was never a Hippo.

De Santis has provided the best book yet on Hippo. I salute him and respect him for that. However, he is an FM, not a GM, and in several cases, his analysis does not go as deep as I would like to see.

de santis himself disagrees with such pig headed idea of what a hippo is. De santis himself tells you that sometimes, you have to go for a semi-hippo to not end up in just a plain bad position. insisting on the hippo set up all the time is just a recipe for a nasty knockout. The hippo is not even a very explored opening to begin with, so claiming a deviation is untested is a very ironic objection.

To clarify, when I talked about when to leave the Hippo , I was referring to not going into a classical Hippo set up , there are times when you have to shift your mindset early in the game. I don’t consider this as totally abandoning the Hippo but instead preventing White’s strongest replies. I also put my games on YouTube @kniteplayer-chess. I have many videos of online games and some of my OTB games on there, if anyone is interested in watching, I would welcome feedback.

Can you please provide an example? I've been asking this question since May 11, 2013. You could be the first.

Can you please provide a pig headed example? I've been asking this question since May 11, 2013. You could be the first.

Take for example. 1.e4 b6 2.d4 Bb7 3. Bd3 g6. 4.f4 in this situation in order to avoid white getting a big center , you play f5 and should be prepared to exchange pieces out , it could go 4.f4 f5 5. Qe2 fxe4 6.Bxe4 BxB . You would definitely be out of a typical Hippo but would have a decent position. Also if he was to play 1.e4 b6 2.d4 Bb7 3.Nc3 e6 and now if he plays 4.f4 you Bb4 pinning the Knight at c3. In these situations you’re not getting a full Hippo but you’re getting games with winning chances. Bottom line if White gets in e4 d4 and f4 early then you have the option to abandon a full Hippo for a better position.

The game you just described was never at any time close to being a Hippo. It's an Owen or a Double Fianchetto. Why are you claiming this to be a Hippo or a semi-Hippo?

It never came close to looking like this:

The Hippo is a setup to maintain flexibility, you don’t have to blindly follow it , if your opponent plays in a manner that will give you a much worse position then you have to have a counter otherwise you can get overrun . Technically 1.e4 b6 will be called an Owen’s defense even if you go into a full Hippo. You have to look at it like this , if you get 7 moves in and before you get a full Hippo , your opponent suddenly leaves a piece hanging, you take the piece, now you have adjusted the Hippo.

So you are claiming that every variation of the Owen Defense, every variation of the Modern Defense, every variation of the English Defense, and all those 1...d6 and 1...e6 defenses are all the Hippo Defense? How about the Nimzo-Indian? Is that a Hippo? Is the Kings Indian Defense a Hippo? What about the Pirc?

@kniteplayer - Are you Robert Drury? If so, I take back what I said about you.

Not at all , it’s the other way around the Hippo defense can come out of those defense , what I’m saying is you don’t have to force the Hippo for instance on move 4,5 it may be beneficial to go into a different option , take it , it won’t take away from the fact that you prefer a full Hippo. That is when you leave the full Hippo . De Santis calls these times semi-hippos

Openings are not defined by what you want or what you prefer. If you decide to play non-Hippo moves then you leave the Hippo. It is as simple as that.

What is Chess? Is it Checkers? Is the Giocco Piano a semi-Ruy Lopez?